Beyond Armageddon: Book 03 - Parallels

by Anthony DeCosmo

After the fall of Atlanta, his soldiers entered Florida and reached the citadel-like city of Miami where a large population lived besieged by a myriad of monsters. Trevor's Empire chased away those nightmares.

  Further north, ferocious block to block fighting cleared New York City of alien pests. While they found almost no human survivors in that concrete jungle, the symbolic capture of such a renowned city boosted morale.

  Last summer, "Operation Patriot" sent thousands of Imperial forces into New England. By summer's end the major cities and important junctures in the Yankee states stood free. Furthermore, expeditions across the old Canadian border found thousands of survivors—including Canadian military--living in camps scattered through the wilderness.

  Of course, the new civilization occupying the lands that once bore the name 'America' held little resemblance to the United States. No densely populated metropolis' linked by gridlocked roads and high speed trains. Instead, isolated outposts and villages connected by neglected highways where the danger of human bandits and extraterrestrial monsters threatened.

  Steam trains operated on the rail lines, armed convoys traveled the roads, and communications relied more on couriers and radios than phone lines and cell towers.

  While things progressed well on the battlefield, Trevor faced a monster of a different kind at home; the rebirth of one of the lowest forms of life on Earth: the politician.

  New Winnabow's destruction in the jaws of Trevor's K9s sparked a conflagration of protests with Evan Godfrey fanning the flames. The resulting unrest forced Trevor to make political concessions as evidenced by a stack of papers on his desk from the newly elected "Senate."

  The very sight of those papers—and what they meant—gave him a headache, thus he welcomed the interruption when a knock came at his door.

  "Yes, yes, come in," he called enthusiastically.

  Three men walked in to the room, starting with General Jon Brewer, the man who had organized the rescue mission to free Trevor from one of The Order’s torture chambers, outwitted the Roachbots at the Battle of Five Armies, and marched across the ice cap in northern Greenland to retrieve the gateway-controlling runes. At one time his ego stood nearly as tall as his six-foot frame, but a personal failure of courage at the outset of Armageddon clipped his swagger. Now he desired only to serve and had demonstrated the ability to adapt yesterday's tactics and weapons to the reality of a changed world.

  Next came Omar Nehru, the Imperial Council’s Director of Science and Technology. He oversaw the matter transfiguration equipment, prioritized resources, and adapted alien technology for use by humanity. Omar—a native of India who came to pre-Armageddon America to teach engineering—never failed to have a cigarette dangling from his lips.

  Last came Brett Stanton, Director of Industry and Manufacturing. Brett coordinated military production using the raw materials from Omar's matter-makers to manufacture guns, ammunition, spare parts, and even humanized versions of the captured alien 'Eagle' air ships. Brett occupied one of the most important positions in the burgeoning nation, but the stress of his job took a toll made obvious by the rapid thinning of his body and hair. His pot-marked face showed signs of early aging and his brown eyes always appeared exhausted.

  The men sat across from Trevor who noticed Omar carried a cardboard tube.

  "All three of you, at once? This can't be good news."

  "Relax, Trev," Brewer assured. "This is a good meeting."

  "Mister Trevor," Omar spoke in the stereotypical accent to match his ethnicity, something he did by design. It grew worse whenever he grew agitated, and disappeared when shocked or scared. He seemed to enjoy playing the part. "We having a proposal you will much like."

  Brewer translated, "We have an idea. I think you're going to like it."

  Trevor asked, "Is this the Isaac’s Apple project?"

  "The idea grew from that, yes," Jon answered as Omar pulled a set of blue prints from the cardboard tube and unfurled them on Trevor's desktop.

  "What am I looking at?"

  Brewer pitched, "Our forces are stretched thin, even with the two new divisions. There’s just so much territory to cover as we head west."

  Stone said, "We always find a way to get by."

  "Here’s our new way to get by," Brewer tapped a finger on the blue prints.

  Trevor let the lines take shape to his eye. At first, he thought he viewed a large navy ship, maybe a battleship or an aircraft carrier. Yet the hull did not look quite right.

  Brewer said, "This is something we were kicking around and realized it might work. Omar drew up the plans and Brett checked with our production capabilities. I spoke with Shep and Stonewall about it last week during our meeting in Chattanooga."

  "Fine, great, what is it?"

  "Take a good look, Trev, at a Dreadnought."

  "A what?"

  "Dreadnought. Just a name I thought up but it could be anything; air carrier, air ship…whatever. The point isn’t the name but what it can do for us."

  "And what is that?"

  "Project power," Brewer told him. "The same way navies used aircraft carriers to project power around the world. Except, in this case, it isn’t limited to oceans but can go anywhere."

  "Break it down for me."

  Omar pointed to different parts of the blueprint as he spoke. "It utilizes a greatly expanded version of the anti-gravity circuitry that is in the Eagle air ships. Now if you look here, you can see that we've incorporated more reverse-engineered alien technology, particularly—"

  Trevor held his hand in a 'stop' sign. "What is this thing? What do you see it doing?"

  Brewer said, "An airship nearly five thousand feet long--that’s about four times an aircraft carrier--and twenty-five hundred feet wide. That gives us a huge flight deck, heavy weapons mounts, and major transport capability, all with a crew under three hundred."

  Omar added, "We are a mind of such that the anti-gravity technology can be adapted to assist in the landing of the jet planes. Combined with the long deck, this will be making it much easier to recover and launch even at the higher of altitudes."

  "Right," Jon agreed. "We also see this thing being armed to the teeth with heavy-duty energy batteries based on Redcoat technology. The thing could pack a wallop, launch planes, and deliver hundreds of troops to the battlefield."

  Trevor leaned back in his seat and let the idea of such a craft sink in.

  "Think of it," Brewer salivated. "We send Dreadnoughts in advance of our armies. They pulverize enemy positions, land troops, and airlift out survivors. Remember my expedition up north? It would have been easy with one of these. We could have flown to the Arctic Circle in a day or two instead of going by sub and would have had air support, more troops, more supplies."

  Trevor turned to Brett Stanton. While Omar dreamed up such things and Brewer could use it on the battlefield, Brett Stanton would ultimately make it a reality.

  "Can this be done?"

  "Yep. But wait now, it won’t be easy and it won’t be fast. I’m figuring eight months from go to prototype. That’s assuming I have the materials I’ll need."

  "You will have all of the materials you will be needing," Omar insisted.

  "The technology this is based on, it’s all sound?"

  Omar answered, "It is simply expanding on things that are working for us already."

  "And our resources are best spent on something like this?"

  General Jon Brewer answered, "Trev, I mean wow, our response time will be faster, we’ll be able to explore remote areas easier. Hell, build a bunch of these and send a fleet around the world to hit The Order’s main facilities or gather survivors in Europe. All that will be possible."

  Trevor gazed at the blueprint and saw what Omar and Jon envisioned: jets lifting off the deck, alien fortresses pounded by the guns, a thousand soldiers landing behind enemy lines.

  "Okay, start work on the prototype. Do it real careful, though."

  Instead of the smiles and nods of enthusiasm he expecte
d, Trevor saw the men—one after another—look away from him as if they had something more to say but feared sharing.

  "What? What is it?"

  "Well," Jon said sheepishly. "Don’t we have to first get funding through the Senate?"

  Of course. The recently elected Senate that busied itself debating food inspection regulations and labor laws with no practical application in the reality of the new world.

  Trevor’s blood boiled. "Do what I say. If any of those damned politicians say a word, send them to me. The only power the Senate has is what I allow it to have. It's a present I gave to Evan Godfrey and his protestors to get them back to work and away from my front yard."

  Jon nodded his head although Trevor saw doubt in his eyes. Nonetheless, his best General told him, "You won’t regret this, this could really change things."

  Trevor glanced at the map on his desk.

  "Yep. It’ll give me a whole new set of pins to push around."

  3. Capital Idea

  Most of the crowd wore crude wool overcoats, a few dressed in fading leather jackets left over from the old world. Regardless, they all shivered as the Capitol Building's long shadow cast over them and made a cold morning colder.

  Their attention focused on a podium positioned between the two massive stairways ascending what had once been the home of the United States Congress.

  The building itself—strong and sturdy—suffered damage from bombs and energy weapons during the early months of the invasion, including the destruction of the 17-foot-tall "Columbus Doors."

  Inside, fire badly scorched the Frieze of American history in the rotunda but that loss represented merely the beginning of damage from flames and smoke. After the alien armies moved off, a Crawling Tube Worm nested inside and ensured that no post-apocalyptic vandals entered the Capitol Building. Or, rather, that no post-apocalyptic vandals left the Capitol Building.

  And so it remained for several years until Trevor's shock troops cleared the city during the first months of the war against the Hivvans.

  While Trevor gave the artifacts of America's old government no attention, Evan Godfrey recruited volunteers and oversaw the restoration of those hallowed halls, starting with the clearing of hundreds of decayed bodies of Capitol police, Secret Service, and CIA paramilitary.

  Now Evan stood at the podium to celebrate another triumph in a series of significant personal victories starting when he gave voice to those shocked by the destruction at New Winnabow. That popularity soared even higher when he calmed protests that otherwise could have torn the newborn Empire apart.

  His place at the forefront of post-invasion politics was sealed when Trevor Stone accepted Evan's compromise and allowed the planting of the seeds of democracy.

  "This is a great beginning," Godfrey’s voice echoed to the shivering crowd of three hundred spectators and nearly a dozen members of the new world's version of the news media. "It has been said that the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. As I take this first step with you, I am reminded of the many great words inscribed in the walls and recesses of this building behind me. Novus ordo seclorum. Or 'a new order of the ages is born.'

  "I was once told that our new world would be an order only of fighting and warfare. That humanity would be nothing more than a mass of soldiers combating the horrid invaders who sully our planet. That our children had nothing to look forward to other than a warrior’s life.

  "While I eagerly carry my sword into battle alongside my brothers in arms, I can confidently say that the new order of the ages is more than war. It will be an order of law, of freedom, and prosperity despite the darkness that threatens to eclipse us. Because what do you need to fight darkness? You need light. You need candles of freedom and torches of hope.

  "Today we have lit more of those candles and torches. Today the first post-invasion elected body will occupy our new home. Today the duly elected Senate will do the people’s business in this hall, a hall that has always been a sanctuary for liberty."

  Applause came but not as roaring as Evan would have liked.

  "We must make the most of this opportunity. We dare not allow this advance to be reversed. We dare not allow any quarter to those who feel there is no room for liberty. For the sake of our forefathers and for the sake of our children, I declare the Senate now in session!"

  The applause came once again, albeit shorter and softer than Evan would have preferred.

  In front of the podium gathered a handful of journalists, mainly from fledgling newspapers although two carried video cameras and a few more brandished tape recorders.

  "Evan!"

  "Mr. Godfrey!"

  "Evan, over here, I have a question!"

  He ignored them until one said exactly what he waited to hear: "Senator Godfrey!"

  Evan—Senator Godfrey—gave his attention to a red haired woman.

  "Yes? Um, Susan, right?"

  "Susan Constanino from WHBA in Harrisburg. Now that the re-opening ceremonies are out of the way, what business do you consider most urgent for the Senate?"

  "Susan, I don’t have to tell anyone out there that right now we have inflation problems and questions of legitimacy for our official currency, Continental Dollars. I am not convinced that Gold Dollars are helping the situation. I think it was a mistake for them to be issued. We will take this up in chambers, debate, and vote. That’s what democracies do."

  Again more questions, again Evan turned to the first to call him "Senator," in this case a Hispanic man wearing a torn leather jacket.

  "Ray Lito, Baltimore New Press. Isn’t that part of the problem? The Senate does not really have any power. Trevor can veto legislation and there is no recourse to override a veto."

  "I believe we will find several things to be true, starting with the fact that Trevor is over extended. The Senate alleviates some of that pressure and allows him to deal directly with military matters. He does not have to be bogged down in the details of day-to-day governing. Second, ultimately it is the people who hold the power. I do not believe Trevor would veto a measure that has the support of the people. Since we are the elected representatives of the people, then we are, in fact, the embodiment of that will."

  "Cindy Taylor, National Broadcast Network. Senator, there is still confusion over the composition of the Senate."

  "In truth, this Senate has more in common with the old House of Representatives. We are using a formula that combines population and geographic boundaries. The result is that there are forty-five Senators today. But I think the bigger point is that the Imperial Senate is really the first seed of democracy. We will continue to expand this concept with time. I, for one, hope that someday we will have both a Senate and a House of Representatives again. Of course, I also want to see a restoration of the three branches of government."

  "Senator Godfrey, do you plan on running for the position of President of the Senate?"

  "No comment."

  ---

  Sharon Godfrey—formerly Sharon Parsons--met Evan underneath the Capitol rotunda. The room stretched high above and was so powerful in feel that it was nearly oppressive.

  The ornate walls…the statues, busts, and plaques…the paintings…it was easy to see how working in such an environment could foster a sense of arrogance; of personal importance.

  "So what do you think?" Evan sought her critique of his performance.

  The crowd moved inside and worked their way around the interior, absorbing the atmosphere and admiring the quality of the restoration. Volunteers served bottles of water and snacks of beef tips and fresh fruit trucked in from points south.

  "Not bad. Could do with a little more, um, let me think how to say this…"

  "Venom," Evan finished for her.

  "I didn’t say that."

  "You don’t have to. This is why I don’t put you in front of a microphone. You’re as subtle as an atomic bomb."

  Her father had served as Chief Councilman of New Winnabow where she lived with her young son. It had been he
r father’s disdain for all things military or violent that convinced him to refuse the passage of troops through their community and who had fatally misjudged the lengths to which Trevor would go for victory. More then one hundred people died at New Winnabow in the jaws of the K9 Grenadiers.

  "Sometimes subtlety is not a virtue, Evan."

  "You really don’t know this game, do you?" He pulled her aside into the shadow of a founding father's statue.

  "I didn’t think we were playing a game, Evan," his partner, occasional lover, and overall showpiece shot back.

  "Oh, now don’t make that mistake, Sharon. It’s one big game. The rules are simple. Don’t slip up. Don’t frown when you should smile, don’t smile when you should be sad. Don’t say the wrong word in front of a rolling camera. But you know the most important rule, Sharon?"

  "Oh, please tell me. I am dying to hear another of your speeches today."

  "The most important rule is to hold your cards close to your chest. You," he gazed at her top down with disdain. "You should never play poker, Sharon. You would go broke."

  "I suppose I have a lot to learn," she conceded nothing and he darned well knew it.

  "Just stick with your part and you’ll be fine. We’ll be fine."

  "Now don’t be mad," she wrapped her arm around his. "Look, I’m smiling because I am touring the grand new Senate building with my husband. Come, darling, let’s go walk arm and arm through your kingdom. Perhaps you can whisper sweet nothings to me about business regulation and budget projections."

  They strolled the hall absorbing the ambiance and the attention. Evan Godfrey, the champion of democracy; the man who could stand toe to toe with The Emperor.

  At his side his wife whose first husband—a brave U.S. Marine--died fighting the invasion and whose father was murdered when Trevor grasped New Winnabow.

  A skinny woman with dark hair and overly long earrings approached the happy couple. She wore a fur coat that served purpose, not fashion.

  "Senator Trimble," Evan greeted her with forced warmth.

  "Senator Godfrey," the woman spoke in guarded tones. "Your words today were well-chosen. Why, one might even say well-crafted."